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Parents want teens and tweens to have routine hearing screenings
Since good hearing is an important part of speech and language development, hearing screening for newborns and elementary school-age children has become common across the U.S. But hearing screening for tweens and teens is less common, even though hearing loss can impact social interactions and self-esteem at these ages.
We asked parents for their perspectives on this topic in order to get a better idea of when parents think children should be screened for hearing loss. A majority of parents favor requiring routine hearing screenings for children from preschool through the teenage years. Read the full report - Parents loud and clear: Test teens and tweens for hearing loss, too.
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Two-thirds of parents want teens to be screened for hearing loss between ages 16-17, which is currently not a very common age for screening. One reason parents may want their teens to have hearing screening is due to increased concern about noise-related hearing loss—which can be caused from extended listening to loud noise, such as through portable listening devices like MP3 players.
In this short video, NPCH Director Dr. Matt Davis and Pediatric Audiologist Dr. Jaynee Handelsman discuss hearing loss and parents’ perspectives on hearing screening: